Evelyn Pickering could have been the leading Pre-Raphaelite painter, at least up there with her uncle R S Stanhope. In 1887 she married the then uber-fashionable ceramicist William De Morgan, and in the Arts and Crafts milieu they were Posh ‘n’ Becks, Harry and Megan, George and Amal rolled together.

Museums have apparently reached a new high in popularity. Against expectations, museums and art galleries in England saw a rise of 2% in 2018 - with, crucially, revenue also up 2% on the previous year – according to Visit England this week. It may seem modest, but it comes after three years of decline.

As newly elected local councils get down to work, arts organisations find themselves having to negotiate a new set of relationships with freshly mandated politicians, many of whom will display utter ignorance of the value of arts to their communities.

This week a review, , She Said More,, looked beyond statistics to show how women in the arts are regarded, and how this has changed. It was compiled by Dr Cath Sleeman who, with Eliza Easton, explains the methods and what was found

Next month the first recipients of Arts Council England’s new Transforming Leadership Fund will be announced. Here, ACE’s executive director of communication and public policy Mags Patten discusses how talent training can ease the strain on emerging leaders

Last week’s TaitMail, prompted by the appointment of a shipping executive as director of the Royal Museums Greenwich, brings a response from Roy Clare CBE, former director of the National Maritime Museum and later CEO of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and then director of Auckland War Memorial Museum in New Zealand